Today, various types of textile fibers including: staple fibers, cellulose fibers, defibrated cellulose fibers, and blends of two or more different fibers can be dry formed into non-woven fabrics by a variety of well known methods. Currently, there exist many different kinds of apparatuses for the uniform distribution of air-laid fibers, especially staple textile fibers and cellulose pulp fibers. However, many of these apparatuses are highly complex mechanical devices, some of which are rather cumbersome, that suffer from one or more disadvantages.
Many of the non-woven fabrics formed on such machines, especially those formed from cellulosic fibers, exhibited good entanglement and matt structure but have little strength. Most staple fibers provide little strength characteristics. For this reason, such fabrics have usually been utilized in absorbent articles, such as absorbent diapers, absorbent feminine pads, absorbent incontinent articles, etc. where strength is not a requirement. In addition, some of these non-woven fabrics have been used in applications where a certain minimum strength is required but the tactile and absorbency properties are unimportant, for example in various specialty papers.
With the development of new and various products, manufacturers would like to run their processes at higher speeds. In addition, some manufacturers would like to use short cellulosic fibers along with the longer staple fibers to improve strength characteristics. The short cellulosic fibers are typically only about 2 to about 3 millimeters in length. Furthermore, many manufacturers would like to be able to form a web that exhibits uniformity in both the machine direction and in the cross direction. Another request from a number of manufacturers is for an apparatus that is capable of making light weight fabrics at current production line speeds, especially those having a basis weight of less than 100 grams per square meter (gsm). Even more so, a number of manufacturers would like to see an apparatus offered for sale that is capable of making light weight fabrics, especially those fabrics having a basis weight of around 75 gsm, 50 gsm, 30 gsm or even a basis weight of about 20 gsm.
Now, an apparatus and method for dry forming a uniform non-woven fibrous web has been invented which can accommodate current production line speeds.